Furniture
by shelter
Summary: Short Story. When Soi Fon, new Captain of the 2nd Division, becomes the target of a brutal assassination attempt, she has to convince herself her former mentor is not the one playing with her life despite all the obvious proof. Soi Fon/ Yoruichi.
1. Lost

**FURNITURE**

**

* * *

Disclaimer**: Bleach & its characters are the property of Tite Kubo.

If it isn't obvious enough, this is my first Bleach fic. The Soi Fon/ Yoruichi ship is too interesting to _not _write about.

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**1. Lost**

_"She turns like the ocean;  
she tells no emotion;  
she's been gunning down the fight - "_

- **Lonely Nation**, by _Switchfoot_

**1.**

For several months after the warrants circulate through both the fortress and the outlying towns, Soi Fon finds her office at the headquarters of the 2nd Division stale, uninviting and too constrictive. So she orders the emblem of the _Onmitsukido_ to be emblazoned over the entire length of her office wall in black. She commands aspiring trainees to have the same logo inscribed on the crook of their throats. And when some protest, she warns them she will do it herself with her own blade if they disobey.

For some reason, she is disappointed when they all submit to her gingerly. As she watches them go through the motions, she sees in their eyes a blankly similar look, like that of a puppy that has been kicked: a little defiant, a little sad, but mostly unsure. She spits in aversion when she concludes she was – possibly – once like them. She orders her trainers to step up the intensity.

As the recently decorated commander-in-chief, she insists on planning, supervising and approving all missions personally, taking over such duties from her officers. They do not refuse and soon her office, its grim space overcome by the new mural, becomes a transit point: her officers seeking permission for their missions, and she granting them. They hardly have the opportunity to arrange their requests into words, when she disposes all need for words, and concurs with them with a flick of her right hand.

She wanders the _Rokongai_ when she is off-duty by herself. The Captain of the Special Forces has no need for a personal attachment of guards, she believes. She dissolves into the crowds, flowing through the throngs which populate these districts for days on end. She recognizes walls drenched with warrants and posters of defectors, Soul Reapers turned criminal and intruders – some already in custody, but a greater majority which she recalls tearing apart with her own bare hands.

Then, she sees the two warrants, the names of their subjects outlined and enhanced with warnings from her own Division – she sees the crude list of their crimes, fading with poor ink. She reads the two names aloud. She covers their names with a faint coating of her own rage, but mostly she crushes the warrants herself, or runs her blade through the strata of papers, till it looks as if the wall itself is shedding its skin.

More months past: she orders her wall repainted, the Special Forces logo buried now under a shield of white paint. The missions come and go with predictability, omniscient working machinery rolling on. And when Soi Fon thinks life as commander-in-chief cannot get any more dreary, she receives a short memo that one of her officers has been murdered.

* * *

**2.**  
Truth is, the corpse lies nicely arrayed at the entrance to the corridor that leads to her office. She observes the man, a loyal Soul Reaper, with whom she had shared a word with – just a day ago, in fact – sitting upright, decorated by a flower of blood plastered against the wall. His weapon is missing. And so are his thumbs, and his face too which, she notes, took the brunt of the attack. Probably could not even know who killed him, she deduces.

The nature of the death and the proximity of the attack have, apparently, been of great interest to her own officers and other Division members, whom she sees milling around discussing what she thinks are insignificant shreds of gossip. They hush when she passes, her presence stealing the voices from their throats. Her men greet her as they guard the scene, their proud insignia catching light and throwing it back into her face. There are so many people that she thinks she sees among them someone familiar: a stiff face wiped clean of expression – tanned arms a sheet of rich chocolate-coloured shade – head armed with a loose, cocky grin –

_No – wait_, she thinks.

She blunders her way into the investigating officer, who happens to be talking to her lieutenant. They salute her.

"Report," she directs.

He claims the deceased had been on patrol duty, and had been surprised by an attack. He swears other sentries have not reported anything amiss. As if adding a flourish to the end of these sentences, he adds with a tight smile that every man has been put into seeking the identity of the audacious offender, who dared to strike so near the commander's office.

"Captain," he tells her, and for a moment Soi Fon finds it worthwhile to tilt her head upwards to meet his sallow face, sunken with solemn vocabulary. "It is highly possible the killer was targeting you, personally."

"So?"

Her lieutenant joins in: "So we were discussing it will be better if you had a personal bodyguard."

"I already said no."

"We know you don't want one since –"

She hardens her stare, lowers the tone of her voice till it has the force to make both men flinch: "Lieutenant, I have made myself clear."

"We will send you someone whom you will find suitable." He persists, then flashes a grin. "I assure you, you will like her."

The moment they are finished she turns back to where she had thought she saw her. But in her place, Soi Fon only sees a girl who is a seated officer in her Division. The pack of onlookers disperse to look for more fuss; and there is no one who looks like –

When she reaches her office, however, Soi Fon finds a pair of bloodless human thumbs propped up neatly on their detached ends on her table. She identifies the skin colour and the contours of the cut. She picks them up, and chucks them out her window.

"You don't scare me," she says aloud, to no one in particular.

* * *

**  
3.**  
When she hears a knock on her door for the twenty-seventh time, she assumes another of her officers needs permission to conduct a skirmish, so she flashes two swishing fingers to the door. But a voice – female voice clearing her throat – forces her to bring her eyes to the door where, an officer clad in full _Onmitsukido _uniform without insignia has her forehead fastened to the ground.

"Yes?"

The girl's voice offers to her in firm, certain tones: "I, Juri Hamatatsu, pledge my life to protect and serve my Captain –"

"Oh. You."

Soi Fon feels mildly irritated because she feels compelled as the commander to ensure the services she is getting are up to standard. So she walks over; the girl's pose remains frozen, her form like a foot-rest, as if she were but part of the furniture.

Soi Fon commands: "Get up."

She inspects the girl, stabs her finger to part her collar and sees the Special Corps logo tattooed there, black in an island of sore flesh. Soi Fon thinks the girl's eyes are too small, but she admires the elfin face, the sheer cliff-like jagged point of her chin, the taut but not bloated biceps, the scar which parts her earlobe (the result of the stepped-up training, definitely) and her eyes which are washed with jade-coloured gloominess. She traces the knuckle-like in the girl's backbone with her finger through the fabric.

"You're good," Soi Fon declares. "My Lieutenant wasn't bluffing."

She returns to her seat, then tosses the girl her rank: the personal guard of the commander-in-chief, a rank not utilized since –

"You will address me as Captain, understood?" Soi Fon tells her.

"Yes, Captain."

"And one more thing." She allows the girl to gaze reluctantly at her face. In return, Soi Fon displays her most wicked sneer: "Try to stay alive."

* * *

**4.**  
On the subject of first missions, Soi Fon remembers this: two of her own flesh and blood perished on their introductory skirmishes in the Special Forces. As the current commander in chief, she has done enough reviewing of previous missions to know how disgracefully they fell. So she resolves that if Juri, her personal bodyguard whom she feels obliged to babysit, ever reaches such a condition, she would not hesitate to remove Juri's ability to endure shame.

But she is surprised: their first outing as a team drives them deep into the _Rokongai _to track down and put down an ex-Soul Reaper suspected of the recent murder. When they corner him, he lashes out with a lance twice his height, with a sharpened edge gruesome enough to impale a Menos. She orders Juri to engage, while she prepares her own weapon.

By the time she looks up, their quarry's face is appropriately smothered in between Juri's legs, his hands clamped underneath her right arm, in a complicated-looking tangle of limbs – a perfect restraint, nonetheless.

Soi Fon finds herself pretending to act unmoved. She steps up to the struggling criminal, kicks his weapon aside and in one swift move, she draws her blade and unfastens his entire left leg from his waist. When he screams, she does the same to his right. She gestures at Juri to release him. Sure enough, he tries to scramble away. But she stamps her foot down onto his back, flips him over and applies weight with her right foot to his throat.

"Any last words?" she asks gently.

She does not wait for a response. But a croaking, incoherent mechanical growl seeps out from his throat as Soi Fon impales her blade through his voice-box. Really a cutthroat, she concludes to herself, satisfied.

"No mercy to the enemies of the 2nd Division," she says to her bodyguard, who stands by her like a dog waiting to extract a pat on the head from her master, or a stray compliment. But all Soi Fon says is:

"Next time try not to get in my way."

Sometimes, on occasions not long after, when Soi Fon knows she is all alone in the debriefing room after a mission, she undresses from her Shinigami captain's robes and steps into the halo of light to survey herself in the glazed, cloistered mirrors. She sees her own unimpressive face, her dual braids snaking from her head and the thin, angular points of her shoulders peeking out loftily like snow-touched escarpments from the uniform she inherited from –

But she does not want to think of that now. Instead, she persuades herself that Juri is a commendable bodyguard who deserves less of her disdain and more of her praise. She wants herself to believe the young, eager girl is really what she needs right now – during an emotionally derelict phase of her life, several months into the most challenging appointment in the Gotei 13, with an assassin stalking her.

She thinks of saying – "that was good skill," – or "congratulations on surviving your first mission," – or even possibly, "I think we might make a good team" – would help to break the almost impregnable formality between them. She thinks she should actually request that bodyguard of hers to accompany in her office.

Instead, she screws her face into a frown – her reflection responds in kind – and slices an arm in front of her eyes block out the sight of her own distraught face staring back at her.

When she returns to her office, however, she finds the new cover of white paint on her wall exfoliating. The unwrapping layers fall out to reveal, written in what she knows is someone's blood, the words: YOU LOOK EVEN MORE DELICIOUS, SLEEVELESS MY DEAR.

"That's going to be the last time you'll see that," she declares to her empty room, a little louder this time.

* * *

**5.**  
When the hunt for the infiltrator fails to turn up further leads, Soi Fon takes over control of the investigation, declaring it a top secret inquiry which no other of her seated officers are allowed access to without her explicit permission. She appoints Juri to assist her as investigating officer and tells her Lieutenant to, temporarily, re-assume duties over all the administration.

She orders immediate observation of all members of the Gotei 13 and insists on daily reports on movements in and out of the _Rukongai_, and on Soul Reapers returning from missions to earth. Juri compiles the findings and when they reach Soi Fon, she scours through them and cross-examines them with those who she knows have access to 2nd Division. The suspect list narrows down from just over a thousand – then to three hundred and twenty-nine – and finally to eighteen, a third of them captains.

When she looks at the names with the criteria the Special Forces describe as _suspicious _and _potentially dangerous to Soul Society_,she and Juri narrow it done to one, final name. When her Lieutenant tells her the suspect has just been dispatched to the earthly realm for, ironically, an observation mission, Soi Fon says:

"Good. Juri and I will bring her head back."

Soi Fon tries not to imagine what the other captains will say: _rash, unprofessional, dirty, executing a seated officer in your division on the basis of petty suspicion is not what a captain should do etc etc_ – as the youngest, newest captain she is used to hearing value-laden, value-added advice from her peers. She shuts out their voices and feels glad when, on her first trip in many months to the domain of the humans, it is raining without remorse.

She allows Juri to flank her with an umbrella. As they trudge down a lighted street pockmarked with puddles, the rain beats a steady tattoo on the umbrella's bamboo folds. A fine mist illuminates the deserted street, entangling itself in her hair, greasing the underside of her palm. Up ahead, she hears talking, and then the diminishing presence of people leaving. Their target is, however, still there.

Soi Fon buries one hand behind her and massages the hilt of her blade for reassurance. She looks to Juri, arm clutching the umbrella at a mathematical angle to shade her captain, and says: "This is your second mission. I'll be expecting more from you."

Her intentions clear, Soi Fon steps out from the shade of the umbrella and into the rapidly swaying curtain of rainfall. The first drops lubricate her eyes, cleanse her face, hungrily overwhelm her uniform.

"Show yourself!" she shouts.

It is raining so mercilessly that their quarry appears like a mirage, a blurry smudge of black – a female Soul Reaper in _Onmitsukido _uniform – against the incoherence of raindrops. Soi Fon can tell she had been expecting an ambush: despite the rain, she can see their target clasping a drawn dagger in her right hand.

"To what honour do I owe a visit by my Captain?" she asks, her voice watery with double-meanings.

"You know very well," Soi Fon replies. Then adds a noun with torrent of loathing: "Traitor."

The traitor chuckles, water shaking off her shoulders. She takes another step forward and asks again, "Will you call me out to fight me, Captain?"

"The names of the assassinated need not be considered," Soi Fon says. "You are and will be known as a traitor, nothing more."

It is the 2nd Division Captain's turn to step forward this time. As she does, she sees the traitor glance beyond her at Juri and remark:

"Is that the Captain's new pet? And a young thing too! You know, you're just like Yoru –"

Silence your tongue!

It takes no other provocation for the fight to begin. In just three strides – _one, two, three_ – Soi Fon is near enough to disarm her opponent. In the ensuing movement, she conjures a current of splashing water and the traitor attempts to sever her fingers with the twin daggers. Soi Fon dodges, counts her steps – _one, two, three, four_ – and flicks her right leg into an arc so swift and so fast the traitor feels the blow to her face first, then the water from the attack.

Before Soi Fon can land a second blow, the traitor breezes past her so fast she can hear her steps like the unsheathing of a sword. _Shunpo_, Soi Fon thinks.

Her attention swerves back to the direction the traitor headed and watches, Juri block her escape. The traitor defends herself, beheading the umbrella with a swipe of her dagger. Juri, in turn, engages the traitor's wide, ferocious slashes bare-handed, wrist grazing against wrist, both fighters dancing, rainfall outlining their every movement, the crash of disturbed puddles like background music to each step.

When Juri drills the flat plateau of her palm into the traitor's chin, Soi Fon sees the opening she needs. It takes just two strides – _two, one_ – and an additional sweep of her blade as she releases it from her sheath – _zero_ – and she delivers the finishing blow. The traitor staggers, her abdomen parted horizontally with a linear wound.

"You're pretty good at _Shunpo_," Soi Fon notes.

And with a strike she, like a butcher carving away flesh, splits the traitor's ankles into a shower of crimson splatter, momentarily making it seem as if it were pouring blood.

The traitor, defeated, sinks into ground, one hand supporting herself, the other stuffed into the open wound at the torso, sending a blood-streaked ripple through the puddles pooling on the street.

Soi Fon waits for her to look up, so she can administer the blow in between the eyes. But the traitor chokes out hoarsely, her voice still confident:

"Of course I'm good in _Shunpo – _she – she taught me herself – Yorui –"

"I never gave you permission to mention her name!" Soi Fon shouts, bringing her foot to the traitor's mouth. But she continues:

"You were nothing – but her pet – and when one gets bored with – a pet – it gets thrown away –"

"Captain, don't listen to her!"

"Thrown away – and left to the dogs –"

But Soi Fon finds her hands sewn tight into fists – she does not know where her blade is, she cannot stand the talking –

Shutthefuckupshutthefuckupshutthefuckupshutthefuckup –

– she drops to her knees and pounds the still moving mouth, the taunting face of her opponent again and again and again and again – until it ceases to resemble a face – until she is wallowing in a lake of crimson waves, with shiny white fragments of bone for islets – the waves breaking against her knees –

Someone – _Juri? – _fishes her out from that lake. When she looks up, she sees a female face. Then thick, fat drops of rain wash away the face into nothing but a muddy stain.

Her voice acts on its own accord, and her ears are filled with a screeching mantra:

Yoruichisamayoruichisamayoruichisamayoruichisama –

* * *

**NOTES:** _Again attempting present-tense to get the feeling of the action. Rating might go up. More violence ahead._

_Next chapter will conclude the short story. Expecting it to be out before end of May. In the meantime I'll be grateful if someone could correct all the information holes my Bleach- canon knowledge._


	2. Found

**2. Found**

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**Disclaimer**: Bleach & its characters are the property of Tite Kubo

**Notes**: This is a re-edited version of Chapter 2 posted on 20 May. I found the ending to the previous one lacking punch, so there's a bit more detail & explanation at the end.

* * *

**6.**

"There are some fancy stories flying around of what you and your bodyguard went to do in the human realm."

Everything about Captain Retsu Unohara is immaculately white, Soi Fon thinks, from robes to her medical equipment, to the reflected light trickling down her forehead, to her smile – slight, but anesthetically relieving, with a faint showing of teeth – which she accepts. The senior Captain removes fragments of bone from the grooves of Soi Fon's knuckles and, close up, she looks like an angel picking through the insignificant dirt of a human frailty.

The older woman stirs, her white robes creasing into a series of fin-like ripples, before finally sliding back into position as she devotes her time to Soi Fon's outstretched hand, freckled with incisions running parallel to the muscle. When she undoes a spiral of chipped bone and wasted flesh from the largest cut on her right hand, Soi Fon pretends to stare at the emblem of the 2nd Division perched on Captain Unohara's shoulder.

As all the fingernails of her left hand, smothered away, close in on themselves, trading pain with pain.

Soi Fon finds it unusual: a captain treating a captain, when any of the Division's medics would suffice. But when she remembers the un-ceremonial stain of the traitor's blood all over her own Shinigami Captain's robes, and the nature of their kill (slaughtering?), she thinks it might be all for the better. When Captain Unohara artistically dresses the wounded and nestles the hand into a bandage, Soi Fon produces a smile of her own.

"You're welcome," the older Captain says.

But when she rises to leave, Soi Fon finds a hand pressing down on her shoulder. Captain Unohara's voice, once inquisitive, falls down on her like a bucket of water:

"Are you sure you are all right, Captain Soi Fon?"

Soi Fon laughs – perhaps a little too mechanically, she thinks. Against the gentle downward pressure of Captain Unohara's hand she gets to her feet. She intends to don her uniform, but she imagines how walking around with such violent evidence of her fight would look like, and she thinks against it.

"Because when your bodyguard brought you in," the older Captain continues, a frown streaming across her face, "you were covered in so much of someone else's blood that –"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

Then she feels sorry for such an automated, curt reply that she compels herself to bow with thanks to her doctor. In the process, she feels the bandages strain on her knuckles, as if her entire right hand were set in stone.

"It's nothing," Captain Unohara says. Again, another warm, motherly smile so blameless that Soi Fon can already start to feel guilty about the host of lies she has offered. As she leaves, the older Captain's voice continues, floating like a breeze over her exposed shoulders:

"You should thank your bodyguard who carried you back. You two really remind me of yourself and –"

* * *

**7.**

At the 2nd Division headquarters, she finds Juri at the training grounds, faithfully following the Special Forces daily sparring programme. There are plenty of onlookers, but Soi Fon wants to settle this fast. She presses a finger to Juri's back, and manually plucks her from the detail. The younger girl complies corrects herself with a bow, and excuses herself.

All around them whispers and wayward words flung from loose tongues echo amongst the other _Onmitsukido _like a passing drizzle.

They walk, out of the grounds, away from the buildings, to where the ground is unkempt, disused and cloudy with circling insects. Grass-eaten ruins of damaged training equipment begin to stalk them the further from the grounds they go. When she is sure they will not be overheard, Soi Fon stops. The wind is teasing her bare, pale shoulders. She puts her fists into the folds of her combat uniform and faces Juri.

"What have my men been saying about me?" she demands. She deliberately keeps her voice barely audible, fusing it with the billowing banter of the insects.

"That you lost control of yourself yesterday." Then she stops, flinches and adds: "That were distracted, and almost got defeated. And that makes your position as Captain questionable."

As Juri speaks, Soi Fon sees her bodyguard at attention. Everything about her is in place save for her feet, which shuffle, out of uncertainty or fatigue or both.

"What about my Lieutenant?"

"He thinks it was just a minor oversight, and that we should concentrate on finding who is really intimidating you."

Soi Fon permits a customary smirk, which she openly shows to her bodyguard. Just like him, she thinks. With her bandaged hand floating, she gestures at Juri.

"Now what do you think?"

"Captain, my opinion doesn't –"

"Enough with the formalities. I want to know."

An interval passes between them: Soi Fon sees her subordinates eyes sprint to the surroundings – she has seen this before, in desperate criminals made unstable with seeking escape. All around the insects chatter without pause, wind grazes the distance between them, and someone from the main building opens and slams shut a window.

"You shouldn't have listened to her taunts, Captain."

A very well-phrased reply, Soi Fon believes. She injects effort into her feet, feeling her hamstring muscles tense and then tighten. And as she inhales, she closes the distance between the two, and hangs an arm around her bodyguard's shoulder. When she speaks, she feels Juri stiffen with surprise, as if her breath were a claw on Juri's neck:

"So you know all about me and my sempai," she says. "I wouldn't have expected any less."

"Enough to not mention her name in your presence," Juri compliments.

"Are you playing around with me?" Soi Fong retorts, feeling her face cascade into a frown at the wisecrack. But she has a better idea. She takes a controlled quota of air, braces her muscles for movement – but before she performs the move, she attaches her hand to Juri's wrist and, just as she streaks away, challenges her subordinate:

"Follow me. Let's see how good your _shunpo_ is."

As she expects, the initial three-step is so fast that Juri stumbles but still reacts in time to absorb her fall with just a knee. Soi Fon does not wait, but she reverses her steps – _three, two, one_ – and she bursts past the fallen Juri, dragging her to her feet.

"Follow me with your _shunpo_. That's an order!"

And Soi Fon lets the counting take over, remembering to exhale at every four-step: _one, two, three, four – _

She traverses beyond the grounds of the 2nd Division's headquarters – beyond the fortress – beyond the ramparts – and out onto the _Rokugai. _Here, with crowds of people below them, Soi Fon continues their game, carefully allowing her swift feet to stream from rooftop to rooftop. Only the faint scratching of feet on tile informs her Juri is not far behind.

The surroundings stagger – from jade-tinted rooftops to black mortar ceilings – indicating to her a transition into the far-western edge of the _Rokugai_. Trees, once sparse, begin to bloom from between the gaps between the houses. But it's not just the landscape, she tells herself: at least once, Soi Fon finds the inevitable tug of lactic acid squeezing at her hamstrings and her breath running short.

She finishes her last count – _four thousand three hundred and twenty-one_ – and lets her feet finally stand still, her left calf especially twitching with exhaustion. Through her sweat-filtered vision she makes out her bodyguard – a distortion in the air, a scraping of heels – as she lands, overcorrects and collapses into Soi Fon's arms, her body beating with heavy panting.

Soi Fon brings her to the ground: they are in a deserted edge of the _Rokugai_, more rural than anything else. As she rises to her feet, her hand reattaches itself to Juri's wrist as she asks:

"Can you stand?"

It takes some effort, but Soi Fon's one arm still possesses enough strength to haul Juri to her feet. Juri's panting does not stop. A shadow of sweat pools at the back of her neck. Her hand still connected, Soi Fon begins walking and Juri follows, limping, like child trailing behind her mother.

"Here, this way." She weaves through the drab street, slowing her pace for Juri to catch up.

And she turns into a shop at the far side of the street. The patrons stare. Some, not willing to share in any fuss two elite Shinigami might provide, start to leave quietly. Soi Fon scowls at them as they troop past her; she heads to a table, plants the exhausted Juri on a chair and summons the elderly owner with a swish of her forefinger.

"_Cha_," she says. Within moments, the owner parts with two cups and a pot of tea. Soi Fon pulls the owner close and says, "We will compensate for any loss in business."

The remaining patrons continue to stare, but some tabletop conversation has resumed. More importantly, Soi Fon notices Juri has gathered enough strength to sit straight – she saws an arms across her forehead to eliminate the persistent trails of sweat sneaking from her fringe. Soi Fon takes the pot, pulls a stream of rust-coloured tea from the stout into both cups and places one in front of Juri.

"Drink up."

"Captain?"

"What?"

"Is this some sort of rite?" Her voice is burdened with sweat, and confusion.

"Because if it is, I would like to know if my performance was good enough for you."

Soi Fon brings the porcelain to her lips: first the cold rim of the cup, then the burning flood of iron-tasting tea, mingled with un-pressed crisp fragments of tea leaves, like sand sloping down the back of her throat. She lowers the cup to the table, with the chime of wood against porcelain. No one else in the shop notices, except Juri who, deprived of an answer, follows every single move.

"My sempai and I used to come here often –

"She said she liked the tea here –

"The more bitter, the more relaxing."

Soi Fon feels that Juri does not give any indication she understands. But she as she refills her cup and holds it in mid-air waiting for Juri to take it, she tries to put into focus what Captain Unahara had said earlier.

She tries to convince herself, as Juri cautiously stares back, that this girl is really like herself – and she, the weak underling, has actually taken over the role of –

Juri downs the entire cup with one swig. She waits for Soi Fon to finish, then before refilling the Captain's empty cup then committing herself to hers. Soi Fon allows this. And this routine repeats itself, four to five times, Captain and bodyguard drinking tea in silence, while the din of the restaurant pours away into the space between them.

* * *

**8.**

Still, the identity, motive and information on the murderer remain unresolved – for a month – the longest in the history of both the _Onmitsukido_ and 2nd Division. The layers of reports Soi Fon forces herself to dig through dust the tips of her fingers, while her Lieutenant informs her, on a daily basis, the officers are searching for the traitor, and that she should stop insisting on personal, and:

"I would advise you again conducting summary executions of our officers when they are returning from missions."

This time, despite her respect for her second-in-command, Soi Fon finds the comment one step too far. Before her Lieutenant can leave, she easily reaches him into _Shunpo_ strides. When he glances back at her in alarm, she fires a finger into his chest and says:

"Don't forget your place, Lieutenant –

"I'm still the Captain. I still give the orders."

But when Soi Fon takes Juri on eight more missions to identify potential suspects, she keeps them mostly surveillance-related. Five times they travel to the human realm to observe _Onmitsukido _officers observe other division officers in action. Twice they witness their own men and women fall to an ambush of criminals hollows and Menos. And when Soi Fon sees the bloodshed, her hands flirt around with the hilt of her sword, dabbing the frayed leather with intent, even while her Lieutenant's response to her declaration of Captainship knocks around in her head.

"Then you should act like it, Captain."

He shakes himself from her grasp, and eyes her carefully, saying:

"There's one suspect you haven't considered in your investigation. Do I even need to remind you that to exclude her would be a breach of procedure?"

Her mind does _not_ need reminding. Instead, she reminds herself how she had been taught that discord between a Captain and her men are both fatal signs of a Captain's personal weakness and her men's inability to take orders. She knows infighting is petty, even though it appears to be a characteristic of 2nd Division officers. She states down her Lieutenant, not willing to soften the crest of her frown, then her voice almost shatters:

"Leave the investigation to me and Juri. I need you to motivate my men. I'll be grateful if you can do that, Lieutenant."

This is not the time for the trust between us to decay, she tells herself. She meditates on this while deftly unclenching and tightening her recovering hand. Bandages gone, her knuckles hiss with force as she cracks them. Nothing but a dark thread of dried skin remains of the wound. The cost: one month of non-combat. Reasonable, she believes, and with her left hand she mutely slips tea from the porcelain cup into her mouth while Juri pours.

Soi Fon knows she and Juri have been passing in and out of the _Rokugai_ and make their stopovers at the restaurant so often that patrons no longer shower them with stares. Twelve times in one month, Soi Fon counts. Their frequency reminds her of the days with her sempai – only their visits now are a lot less talkative. For moments on end, after missions, they sit facing each other, her chin serenely roosting on her peak of her right hand, the pot of tea in the middle acting as the fulcrum between their pouring hands.

She thinks Juri, the recommended bodyguard who she once dismissed as just another fresh fish, is progressing so well she might be vulnerable to being made a seated officer in the 2nd Division. It has been one month, Soi Fon notes grimly, and she has a total of 15 missions to her credit, including those done with other companies within the _Onmitsukido. _It is an impressive record. A record which makes all the other seated officers mumble beneath the neutral cover of their mouthpieces – _the Captain has a new pet/ they make an adorable couple/ the Captain is following the previous Captain's footsteps – _

To which her Lieutenant puts things simply: "You take too much upon herself."

"Do you think I'm acting as if the entire Division depended on me?" she imagines herself openly asking her subordinate, the question breaching the border of her own sincerity and her need to know.

Instead she does not, and as Juri puts down her cup, Soi Fon sees the desolate dregs of bitter tea, the almost invisible blemish of tea left by her lips at the rim. She follows the bark-coloured hands, darkened from missions outdoors – up to the squared shoulders, and to Juri's pensive face. A cloud of hair gathers on her forehead, spilling from the band which streams her hair into an taut ponytail.

Soi Fon almost wants to tell Juri: "If you had purple hair, you would look a lot like –"

But when Juri catches her looking, Soi Fon drains her cup, her fingers twirling it along it sides. She sets it down and says:

"Drink up. Let's go."

And she tells herself it is not good to think these things.

Nonetheless, when she returns to her office, she finds the doorknobs slick with a viscous tongue of what she thinks is glue. She readies her blade, forces open the doors and stops, her feet wallowing in the pyramid of semi-light leaking from her window. And there on her chair, hangs her own Shinigami Captain's uniform, the logo of the 2nd Division untouched by shadow. It sleeves are jagged with, definitely, blood. A dagger weighs down the collars, like a short stubble of a tie.

She nears, and there is enough failing light to reveal the words – HAVING FUN WITH THAT LITTLE WHORE OF YOURS? FORGOTTEN ABOUT ME ALREADY? – curling across her table like a doctrinal truth.

"When will you stop hiding?" she yells to the room, and to the ornamental blood-cradled warning, and to the long legs of light stretching from her windows. "Why don't you just say it to my face?"

But when the silence assumes control of the room she says again:

"If you really are Yoruichi-sama, why are you doing this to me?

"Why?"

* * *

**9.**

She does not receive any answer.

In the interval of her own doubt and her own finding out, she enters the human realm again: 2nd Division is requested to offer reconnaissance and forward support for an ambush on a planned Menos stronghold. Soi Fon sends several of her best officers ahead, including Juri and her Lieutenant, both of whom she knows will follow her orders down to the last syllable. When she passes through the portal, escorted by full-ranked _Onmitsukido, _she finds herself at the rearguard, at a hill overlooking an industrial complex, cradled in the valley below, flanked to the right by the coast and a vomit-yellow beach. Officers from the 4th Division wait for their services beside a fence, fringed with barbed wire.

"Shall we go a little closer to the action?" Soi Fon asks, and she speeds up her feet, vaulting over the fence. Her officers follow.

The first thing that hits her is the stench. Humans and their attempts at playing god, she thinks. Columns, like chimneys, peer out from the night fog, their peaks like stationary stars blinking low. She crosses a forlorn scene of a battle – Shimigami medics tending to the wounded, blood scattered on the dark road, an officer missing an arm – but her team is travelling so fast no one even notices them.

Spiritual pressure builds, intensifies – but in the tangle of elliptical tanks, iron-like bulwarks and a multitude of silver pipes sprouting from these structures like roots at right angles, she cannot pinpoint the exact location of the fighting. The surroundings have a life of their own, with steam, rasping noises and lights all stretching her senses into wariness.

"Keep moving!" she calls her two officers.

She cuts through the veins of the refineries, dodging the oval shapes with names like PROPANE. The background resounds with a static pulse, the occasional distant shout of orders, and the crunch of her feet on gravel, which to her sounds like the sifting of rice grains on wood. She stops behind signboard, the fence rimming the compound visible beyond another rise. As her officers recover from their sprint, she produces a hand to shush them.

There it is, she concludes. She cannot see properly in the miserable light – the repetitive outburst of red light from the top of the nearest smokestack first reddens and then recedes – but she can hear fighting. A muffled blow, the shriek of ripped fabric, more footsteps crouched in gravel, and then – quiet.

In the midst of the silence, Soi Fon hears the universal call to regroup, like a severe anticlimax: "All units: regroup at the portal. Mission accomplished."

She tries to hope that Juri is all right, but she finds such worrying perpetually immature and unprofessional. She settles for running her vision through the red-washed scene in front of her. She finds it unusual, though, that the spiritual pressure is not dissipating like it should because –

"Captain! To your left!"

She eyes dart in the direction of her officer's warning; they scour towards the fence – there a figure bleached into shadow by the glaring red light appears to be waiting patiently on the outer side, clearly watching them.

"Cover me," she commands, draws her blade and moves so fast her words are meshed into a crackling of feet and gravel.

It takes several seconds, the surroundings becoming inconsistent, her target looming into greater detail as she nears – but she notices the face – and she leans the muscles to a halt, not before pushing her blade through the patterned gaps in the fence –

"You must be Special Forces. One moment you were there, and now I've barely stopped you from killing me."

"Stop playing dumb, you traitor."

The dusty dark shadow has long parted, and Soi Fon's other hand snakes its way into the gap to wrench her sword free, but is tapped down by a wooden walking stick. She throws her head upward: her sword, supported by the force of her entire right hand, is clamped down by his. Deadlock.

And the face, she imagines, a traitor's face – a traitor's smile.

"Come to gather information on us, Urahara?" she demands.

"I'm doing my part to contain those Menos you were fighting in there. Nothing more nothing less." He removes the shaft of his walking stick and releases Soi Fon's blade. He shakes with a chuckle or a suppressed sneer, his absurd bucket hat teetering on the edge of his head. "You cannot kill me for loitering with intent."

He fixes a tight, unflattering smile to his face, a crescent under the rim of his hat, but she thinks it is meek attempt at goodwill. She calculates that a solid slash will part the metal fence, and surprise him enough for her to finish him off.

"You must be Yoruichi's pupil –"

Now – this time an upward swing rips the fence into an opening like a fresh wound. Parted like a curtain, it crumbles around them. Soi Fon sees the traitor's eyes brim with shock. But when she brings her blade down she is met by a reverse end of his walking stick, piling the sharp end of her blade into the earth. She levels her fist into a punch – but he catches it, the absorbed strength making his arm muscles shudder –

They are locked in that position, but just before Soi Fon can fire her left knee into his chin, he warns:

"I'm not here to fight. I'm here to see how you're faring."

"Stop contradicting yourself!" she spits, but his words sink into her like dead-weight. "So it's you! You –"

"She would like to meet."

The words cause her to drop her stance, unfasten her blade. In response, Urahara removes his walking stick. I cannot trust him, she thinks. Sure enough, he raises his stick to cover his chest as she flexes the outward point of her right ankle, readying it for a strike.

"And how would I know you're telling the truth?"

In a display of sub-satisfied nonchalance, he turns his back on her, but not before saying: "She'll tell you herself."

For a second, she contemplates decking him with a strike across his shoulders. But sensing her officers watching nearby, she merely slackens her hands and retrieves her blade. By the time she looks up, he is gone. And the world returns to the numbing flashing of poisoned light, her feet entombed with gravel pieces from her rapid movements.

"Captain, should we follow him?" one of her officers asks, swords ready.

She closes her grip on her blade, noticing no blood where Urahara had held it. She allows herself to exhale audibly – perhaps too audibly – as a sign of frustration.

"No, let him go." Then she adds with a swing in her tone laced with semi-apathy: "He's not the one we want. Just another criminal."

She tries to turn back, thinking she should find where Juri, and her Lieutenant, and the rest of the division. But Urahara's lack of presence bothers her: the slightly cocky smile, the brush of his walking stick (as dangerous as a Zanpakuto), the casual, staggering twist to his words – all these things. His truth, she feels, is as unnerving as his pretense.

As she walks, she spills gravel all over her feet. Her head is hurting, and only then when she brushes through her hair and pricks her finger, does she notices the coil of barbed wire twirled her to temples like a crown.

* * *

_18.05.2009 _(1st Edit),_ 20.05.2009 _(2nd Edit)_  
_

**Additional Notes:** For the sake of character & plot development, I'll have to come up with an additional, **final **chapter.

Also, apologies to Yorusoi for the barbed wire motif. It was not planned, but it seemed a natural conclusion to the chapter. Still, the chief images/ motifs in my story are as the main title suggests: furniture.

Summary has also been edited for clarity.

Next chapter will be written by 26-27 May 09. Present-tense all the way.

Oh yes: reviews are very much appreciated. Thanks to all who have such kind comments so far, **really appreciate** you taking time off to read a rather complicated fic :)


	3. And Wanting

**3. And Wanting**

* * *

**Disclaimer: **Bleach & its characters are the property of Tite Kubo.

**Notes:** Final chapter, but **an epilogue will be posted**. And thanks all for reading. Appreciate you taking time to read :)

_This chapter is rated M for extreme violence & disturbing imagery/ references_.

* * *

_"She's just reminiscing;  
blood, sweat, and one thing's missing -  
she's been breaking up inside - inside -"_  
- **Lonely Nation**, by _Switchfoot_

**10.**

"Does it hurt, Captain?"

It is Juri, not any 4th Division medic, who forcefully out-reasons her to sit down and let her attend the wounds on her temple. So Soi Fon cramps her fists deep within her robes, and leans back on the fence – the same fence topped with an outgrowth of barbed wire – while her bodyguard cleans the injury with her own face covering. When she touches the triangular stamp of blood at the side of her head, a sharp rush of pain makes Soi Fon twitch as if hit by a blow to the face.

"No, it's fine."

She listens to her lieutenant's findings. Even when he addresses her, he chooses to loiter at the outer boundary of herself and Juri. There is a wary distance, feelings still raw from their previous tense encounter. He reports to her:

"There was no sign of the traitor Urahara Kisuke when our officers made a second sweep of the perimeter." She sees him tilt his head sideways, allowing her gaze to deflect into the area somewhere along the bridge of his nose, and not directly at his eyes. "Shall I inform the other captains –?"

She already has the word edging into her voice:

"No."

He does not say a word. He acknowledges her with a cock of his head. She regards him coolly, not wanting to reload their previous argument. She allows herself to slump into the fence as he departs.

_She'll tell you herself_ – were Urahara's words, she rehearses, and so all this chaos will finally come to an end, will it? As the other Divisions make their return to Soul Society in a haze of dismissal, she counts her breath, taking in the garish scent of decay all around her, trying to bury her own rush of unfiltered emotions as she thinks of her sempai.

"Captain?"

Juri's voice, instead, smears itself across her bare neck, her cheeks, the entire side of her face. It is a voice ripe with sweat, so hot and close Soi Fon cannot feel the cut on her head, or recall the slick stickiness of Urahara's smirk.

Just Juri's voice, again, the forceful syllables of her sandy tongue lapping her own sweat-flushed face. When Soi Fon looks up, Juri's face is breaking into a question mark –

"Captain, are you all right?"

While the ambling red light from the surroundings absorbs itself into shadow – and back into an unearthly crimson, again –

"I'm fine."

* * *

**11.**

But she knows she isn't.

Like many times before – and countless instances which will come after – she finds herself before the walled mirrors in the debriefing room after dismissing Juri. A swollen ridge of hardened blood decorates a point just above her left eyebrow. A frown adorns her reflected eyes.

She gives herself the opportunity to undress. Then with both arms outstretched, steadies herself on the frame of the mirror. The idealistic white of her Shinigami Captain's robes lies pooled around her on the ground, like a second skin. She crosses her thin arms, allowing the grooves of her bone to etch themselves on her skin. She sees her own face surfacing amidst the deep lake of whirling reflection.

Sometimes, like now, she would prefer to imagine that, no – she does not need another message. And, no – she would not want to meet her sempai anymore. She watches her own eyelids flicker at the courage of her imagination, sees her own hand brush aside a stray lock of hair.

She looks down. Sometimes, like now, she would prefer herself to think, close to nine months into her appointment as the Captain of the most challenging Division in the Gotei 13, she – is – fine. _Really_. She has a Lieutenant capable enough to defy her, officers concerned enough to follow her to the far side of hell. And she has Juri – who, she should believe, is more than enough, more real than a sempai who ditched her – and at least she is half-confident her trust will not be betrayed –

But when she raises her face to the mirror again, meeting her own eyes, she already knows her own answer. She sees her uniform: the straight, tight-fitting cuts which pour out the terrain of her skin. She watches as, pushing herself away from the mirror, her own arms curl with overused muscle, the fingers on her sword-arm bearing the pressured crests of her _Shi Kai_.

_She'll tell you herself_, she thinks –

She wants to bleach the entrenched smile off Urahara's face with her bare hands.

_She'll tell you herself _–

"So what are you waiting for?" she says to the empty debriefing room as she leaves.

"Are you waiting for me to forgive you?"

Her own reflection dissolves into the glass.

* * *

**12.**

She does not wait to confront herself in front of the mirror again. Instead, she insists life must proceed with the same pious pace as before: she shouts down the trainees when they cannot remember their field-craft, she retreats into reports late into the night, she trains Juri in _Shunpo_ with a relentless regularity –

And when her feet beneath to blister and flake from slipping through rooftops, she and Juri are resigned to return to the restaurant.

(Yet while Juri pours her yet another cup of tea, Soi Fon cannot know this will be the last time both Captain and bodyguard will be at the _Rukongai_ restaurant together).

"You're getting faster," is all Soi Fon allows herself to say. Yet the condensed compliment is absorbed by Juri like a promotion to a Captain. Juri passes her shy smile to her across the table. She finds herself at pains to reciprocate.

"Not as fast as you are, Captain."

She permits herself to respond to the flattery: "Of course – I was taught by the best –"

When Soi Fon puts lips to tea, she forces away its scalding grip on her tongue. But by the time the liquid leaps down her throat, she knows – she can even taste it –

"Shit," she blurts out. An induced gag reflex forces her to cough. She smacks the Juri's cup out of her hand.

"Captain?"

She seizes the pot of tea and empties it over the table: it bleeds a steaming, confident stream of tea so red that it could only be – When the pot can no longer maintain its flow, she lets it fall; it splits into a thousand fragments on the table already tainted with blood.

Everyone in the restaurant, accustomed to the two Shinigamis' peaceful routine, immediately heap her and Juri with their attention.

"Captain, don't –"

But she punches her knee into one of the table's legs. Before it can buckle, Soi Fon flips it over cleanly with a single upward thrust of her right hand. It twirls, and lands comfortably overturned, its remaining legs in the air like the reddened, mutilated carcass of an animal. And there, written on the table's underbelly in an arrogantly calligraphic crimson scrawl – is the longest message she has ever seen thus far.

She takes Juri by the wrist – she does not want her to see what might be a personal message – and tells her with a finger aimed at her face: "Seal off this entire restaurant. Get 2nd Division to detain everyone here. Kill the owner on sight."

She throws the grip on Juri's wrist aside, and as the 2nd Division officers begin to arrive, she commits the entire message to memory – the details, the orders, the instructions, even the emphasis on certain strokes – before releasing her blade, hacking everything into a dusty swarm of splinters.

But it is the closing sentence which disturbs her, like a prickling disturbance surging through her understanding of the traitor's words:

– WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS.

* * *

**13.**

She is not willing to repeat her instructions to the two Special Forces officers manning the 2nd Division portal to the living world. So she asks Juri to handle them.

YOU HAVE WAITED PATIENTLY ENOUGH. SO YOU AND YOUR LITTLE BITCH ARE INVITED FOR AN EVENING YOU WILL NEVER FORGET –

She resents interruption as she claws through her mind to extract the words of the threat. But Juri, in a move which she considers too brash for a bodyguard, taps her on the shoulder and says: "They understand. In a day they will come looking if we don't return."

She endures their trip through the portal as a token inconvenience – the onslaught of their arrival in the living world ripples with energy, and for a brief moment she feels her entire bodyweight straining itself through her joints as a result – but it is over within a moment. Juri's hand hooks itself on her shoulder; Soi Fon feels the pressure of the touch eat into her shoulder blade, distributing itself as Juri's fingers release themselves.

But she says nothing.

They are at empty intersection of two streets. A pair of traffic lights blinks casually to them. A cat shrieks somewhere beyond their vision. Soi Fon does not sense anything amiss, but refuses to let her hand leave her unsheathed blade nonetheless. It is only when she feels a numbing moistness slipping between her fingers does she realise – from the bars of street-light – it is raining – again.

"Cover me," she orders.

With a pulse of muscle tightening in her hamstrings and ankles, she skips past the puddles to a solid dark mass parallel to her position. She pauses in the tooth of darkness cast by an awning, and watches as Juri follows her _Shunpo_, her steps so rapid and practiced they hardly wake ripples on the puddles.

She continues her steps, feeling only the farthermost tips of her shoes getting damp, and hearing the singing wind announce Juri's arrival as she follows. When her body brushes against the peppered surface of a wall, she stops, watching as the dampness of her Shinigami Captain's robes smudges a dark wet stroke on the ground.

– REMEMBER WHERE YOU KILLED THAT TRAITOR? BANK RIGHT, AND THERE YOU WILL FIND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE IN THE TOWN. A PLACE WITH THE FINEST ATMOSPHERE, WHERE WE CAN HAVE AN EVENING UNINTERRUPTED –

She peers past the banking wall and the sole overhead light throwing its light at the ground. There, amongst the drenched concrete, she sees is a huge, soft surface reading WELCOME, at the foot of two thick doors.

"We're here." She warily creeps up to the leftmost door, and Juri follows suit to the right. "Enter and cover me."

Before Juri can even nod her acceptance, Soi Fon slams her shoulder into the cleft between the two doors, and they relent to her force, folding into an opening. She sweeps into the suffocating darkness. But she does not let it overwhelm her: in a moment she is on her feet, her blade crossed before her, the darkness slowly starting to twist, contort and wriggle into shapes tortured by the sudden entrance of rain-splashed light.

She feels Juri shuffle her way to her side. Her panting fills the huge silence swallowing them.

Then, it stops so sharply that Soi Fon can predict the next phrase her bodyguard will mutter:

"What is this place?"

Even she, herself, does not know. Still, she lowers herself into a half-crouch and stalks forward, the blank shapes greeting her becoming swelling and swelling –

She sees chairs, fittings, lights, tables (complete with their settings), walls as thin as paper, floors flooded with different textures, reclining beds spilling forth blankets – she sees everything, a world of human things, meant for human purposes, yet standing proudly in the absence of human presence –

Navigating stealthily through the forest of furniture, Soi Fon feels uneasy. She feels this place is empty, yet crowded at the same time. She feels as if she is swimming through the pieces of people's lives – no – she feels overwhelmed out by the unassembled debris of what _could be_ many lives, the presence of multitudes still lingering in the air around the dusted chairs, the dolls with frozen faces filling up the shelves, the cups with their faces unaltered by actual use –

Why does she wants to meet me here, she questions wildly.

She passes over a detail of chairs, arranged so orderly they could compete with a 2nd Division inspection drill. The air, cluttered into the dark space, reeks of wood – but it is an unnatural stench, with an intense acidic residue Soi Fon cannot identify. A vain repetition of words she cannot make sense of pour down both the walls and streaming white banners – IKEA IKEA IKEA.

"Captain, are you sure this is the right place?"

She can easily detect a frail anxiety in Juri's voice, as crisp as rice on paper. She, too, feels it: every moment spent in his hideous place of make-believe homes is an excuse for getting ambush.

But she remembers – she can read out the last lines of the recent message, and accompanying that, she half-trusts her sempai would not lie to her. I have come this far, she tells herself, I need to settle this nonsense once and for all.

– AS PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR UNBELIEF THERE WILL BE A PRICE TO PAY BEFORE YOU SEE ME. SETTLE IT AT THE DOOR. WITHOUT SACRIFICE THERE CAN BE NO REWARD. WITHOUT BELIEF THERE CAN BE NO WRONGS TO MAKE RIGHT –

She retracts her steps and ventures back to the door. She sees the sublimely neat rows and rows of trolleys and a dining table set out in the middle of the floor. She understands it is the OFFER OF THE MONTH, proclaimed in dark bold in an ornament streaming down from the ceiling. Juri, still ever alert, watches the doors, her back scraping the edge of the prominent table.

– WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS.

Soi Fon goes over to Juri and puts a hand on her shoulder so she turns to face her Captain. Voice at ease, without the slightest indication of breaking, Soi Fon says:

"I'm sorry about this."

She removes her blade. And wipes it upwards across Juri's face. When Juri's hand tries to defend herself, Soi Fon hacks harder, and harder – and harder.

* * *

**14.**

"Yoruichi-sama!"

She is trying to pretend she is not breathless. But heaving the faceless body of Juri up on the table takes more effort than she imagines. Now, seeing but not really believing, the person on the table is no longer a body; it is more a product of consequent action, a corpse. Soi Fon slices the hem of her sleeve across her forehead, and the white swathe of fabric collects more blood than sweat.

In one swift move she clips away the corpse's arms at the elbows. Then, with a precision of a butcher she hews away the legs, muscular and meaty from practicing all that _Shunpo_, cleanly at the hip. She pretends to ignore the sound severed bone makes when it clunks to the ground.

She takes in a deep breath, her senses immersed with a stubborn, watery scent of wounds and blood which she recognizes from too many visits to the 4th Division hospital. Finally, with her eyes averted, she fills her palms with the corpse's ponytail and she cuts it off and lays it on the sharp cliff point of its chin. Her initial slash, she notices, has struck so accurately the corpse's face appears to open like a book.

"Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness!" she calls out, to no one in particular, to no one in the huge gloom of this dark place. "So this is what I've done to get yours!

"Yoruichi-sama! I've gotten rid of the whore!"

Her eyes are beginning to swell. She ignores this: she believes tears for a fallen comrade – much less a mere pound of flesh – are inappropriate for such a crucial moment on the battlefield. She blinks them away. As she walks forward she accidentally marks out her waxy fingers, palms and knuckles on pieces of furniture.

"YORUICHI-SAMA! Show yourself to me!"

The answer is an absolute silence ignited only by the drip drip drip of blood from the table behind her onto other pieces of flesh strewn around. Soi Fon feels something warm and watery leak down the bridge of her nose –

Again, she wills herself to think, again she keeps playing with me, she always does this –

Wait. As if in defiance of her own disbelief, she senses something flare in the deep darkness. A familiar presence. And then, it announces itself, its approaching footsteps slapping themselves on the marble floor as it lingers at the edge of the her acceptable vision.

"Please let me see your face again, Yoruichi-sama," she finds herself pleading. She feels it is the least she can allow her to do after so much – bloodshed.

The person sweeps into her view, the darkness retreating from the body upwards, and finally to the face. It is not her sempai. It is not even that traitor Urahara.

"Hello Captain."

Soi Fon wants to mask her shock (or is it disappointment?) but she cannot: her own blade leaves her hand and drops disgracefully on the ground. She thinks she is seeing things – surely she must be – she thinks she is giddy from seeing so much blood – surely. But then the man before her draws a _kunai, _and flings his hand at her. The sharp point of the weapon bursts past her right ear and strips it of its earlobe –

The pain lets her know: THIS IS ALL REAL.

"Wake up, Captain. You've been distracted lately."

She doubles over: her nose crunches sideways into soft bloody pulp on the ground. Before she can even raise her head to see her traitor, he feels his foot on her torn ear. The blow crushes what is left of it. And now, the anguish of physical injury and betrayal ripping through her, does she _scream_.

"No one can hear us. So scream all you want."

She crawls away, blood and salty teardrops clouding her vision. When he does not follow, she turns around and yells, cracking:

"What is – the meaning of this – Lieutenant?"

"There is no meaning. Only your inability to think straight."

In just two steps, he is near enough to strike a _kunai_ down at her chest. Soi Fon responds in kind, but her back rams into the sharp ridge of the table. The last thing she sees before his _kunai_ hits her is Juri's mouth and its tongue, beached in a bay of blood.

* * *

**15.**

"You take too much upon yourself, Captain Soi Fon."

His voice manouveres through the up-ended chairs and halved tables. It tears at her like a blade through the abdomen, competing with her own guilt at the numerous innocents whose blood forms an affectionate second skin over her bleeding body.

"A captain's job is to lead his men. He can't always be distracted by past memories or worse, lost love," she hears him lay a stress on the last word, the pronunciation of the "ouve" heightened by the thrashing of his unseen tongue. "Since you couldn't fulfill that responsibility, I took it upon myself to relieve you of it – and how easy that process was."

She wants to yell that he talks too much for a Lieutenant, but she knows it will give away her position. Now she can hardly stand. When she drags herself to a half-seated position on the next chair, her thigh – punctured with a single, ominous hole where she had deflected his second _kunai_ strike – does not respond to her muscles. All it does it dribble a dark red torrent of blood.

"All I did was write some abstract trash on your wall and you assume that bitch is trying to talk to you. All I did was alter the reports and you didn't even notice!

"I even planned this nice quiet place where no one would hear us fighting. And you fell for it! You – really – fell for it! You actually believed Yoruichi was going to – _what_ – make love to you in this dump?"

When she thinks she is near enough, she vaults from her position on her chair at him, her left leg cutting through air.

"Oho! An ambush!"

With his bare hand he catches her, and then she feels his fist collide with her chin. All her teeth are forced to the back of her throat. Her left leg passes through air, and the impact of his punch flings her to the ground. She hits the floor, the back of her head rebounding off from it. Her whole world reduces itself into a series of black spots for a whole second, before the pain shoots through her head.

I – cannot – fight like this, she thinks. Shit – shit – shit –

"You keep saying you were taught by the best."

_Shit. _She feels his foot on the back of her neck. When she squirms desperately, the pressure intensifies. _Cannot – breathe – _

"Because don't forget Yoruichi taught me too."

She feels her head being tugged back, as if numerous strings have been hooked to her face and are pulling in the opposite direction. A cutting sound. And when he lowers himself to her, she sees – sees – both her braids nestled in his hands, their gold rings twirling around his fat fingers.

"Spoils for the victor," he sneers.

She knows it is far from over. But then she hears the cry of fabric ripped fabric, and her knees and thighs sting with contact with the ground. And when she feels his entire weight atop her, a twisting force pushing its way through her buttocks, she forces herself to flip over –

"Oh come on, Captain. One last gift from you –"

"Get off me!"

Her wounded right leg still has enough strength to curl at the knee, and she swipes it at his cleaver-like _Zanpakuto – _as her right leg erupts in pain she manages to disarm him – and her heel, loosened with muscle and slow in following up, connects with the bridge of his nose –

_Yes._

She rushes forward, towards where she knows her blade is still untouched and unused. His curses accompany her – when his blade fires away at her with rage-driven swipes, she ducks behind a large soft chair. His strike splits it at the front, and it gives birth to a white soft substance that fastens itself on the still wet blood on her body.

"Nice move, Captain." She knows his voice has not lost the weight of his confidence. "We're alone here. So why not have some fun before we end this, eh? Take it as a promotion present from you before I take over your post. "

She streaks across the opening between two false kitchen walls – _come on, don't see me – _but he does. The expected strike from his sword cancels out one wall, and blazes through a low ceiling of hanging champagne glasses. They shatter on impact – and a sandy cloud of crunched glass showers Soi Fon as she crawls behind another piece of furniture.

From there, she can see the table where Juri's body lies serrated and presented like a hideous dish for a dinner that was never meant to be. And the moment she thinks of Juri her vision breaks up into blurry spots – tears or pain, she does not know – and the knowledge of her wounds burden her. But there, she spots, beside the table, her blade, enshrined in half-shadow from the fitful light from without.

I – have – to – get – there – if I want to live, she tells herself.

"Come on out, Captain!" comes the garbled voice from behind her. "I can barely hold myself in!"

Against the pain breaking into her head, she steadies herself on both feet, crounched first, one hand on a chair for support. When she attempts to force her calves and shins to obey her, a wave of pain crushes her resolve and sends her back to the floor. I – need – _Shunpo,_ she tightens her fists at the thought, _please_. Her head clenching in pain, she tries again – again – and _moves – _

She feels her feet crashing on the ground, her injuries bubbling with raw agony with every step – the surroundings liquidate themselves in passing and the wind catches her exposed hairline – almost, she thinks, _almost_ –

When her feet cannot endure anymore strain they crumple like a stack of paper at the mercy of a forceful wind. Before she hits the ground she turns in mid-air, and absorbs the impact by landing on her uninjured side. Her hand chucks itself at her weapon and her fingers dab at the coldness of the hilt –

"Too slow."

Instantly she sees her fingernails disintegrate as his sword deals a horizontal cut.

"Ah," she wants to scream but it gets lost in her throat. The pain bites back at her finger-joints, slowly snaking away into her body. "Ah…ah…ah –"

"Come on. Say it."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Good."

_I – am – dead_.

She sees it is still raining outside, perhaps heavier now. The door where she came in is swinging softly against its hinges. A sign beside it reads PARENTS PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN. She sees it in stunning clarity as she feels all her robes drip away from her.

"We-ll, Captain Soi Fon," his voice hovers above her head, like the voice of a deity she cannot see. "We both agree the undeserving cannot be in a position of power, yes? This battle has proved that only one of us is the winner – that only one of us should be captain. _Me_. And not some throw-away from the legacy of some self-righteous bitch."

She coughs out a shivering orb of blood. Her head inflamed with pain, she tries to say, "Shut up."

"I'll write a report for you, Captain. Don't worry. We'll remember you at the memorial service and at my promotion ceremony."

A singular, burrowing force – like a worm – drills into her rear and floods her crotch with weight. No – she buckles under the heaviness of his entire torso – no – and then his first push wracks her forward – no – NO – NO –

With a desperate lunge, her chopped fingers finally clutch the hilt of her blade. As the swelling pain in her buttocks stabs at her again, she flips herself around once more to confront her attacker face-to-face.

"Aha, any last words, bitch –"

"Sting all enemies to death."

Even before the blade mutates into its final form, she arches her entire back and straightens her spine. Her Lieutenant cries in surprise – his blade rains down at her – but she deflects it with her shoulder, spearing it through into it. And with a last burst of resolve she shoves the stinger through his throat.

Her_ Shi Kai _explodes away at his Adam's apple and exits from the nape of his neck. It follows through until it strains her fingers. When her Lieutenant tries to scream, his neck gives way into a misty drizzle of flesh, and he slumps forward, his eyes smeared clean, absent.

Finally – _finally _are the words that echo through her head as she folds and falls to the floor. Her grip on _Suzumebachi _slackens and her entire arm gives way, releasing her Lieutenant's body. It falls, too, but backwards, crotch exposed. But otherwise a perfectly clean body, save for the mess under its chin.

She drags herself back to the silent, immovable spectators of their fight. Everything is over, she tells herself. Silence soaks into the surroundings. Shadows now become predictable. She is alone, again.

She stops at a broad sign that says SOFA FOR TWO: SALE and crawls her way along its arm. She has never seen a chair this big, this long, this soft. She thinks it looks like a throne –

– She can remember the cushioned chair in the commander's room at the 2nd Division – she can remember the generations of commanders, her and her sempai, included who had relieved their weariness of its surface – she can remember when Yoruichi had invited her to sit alongside her, once, how soft the chair was, how it seemed to eat away her weight –

And she can remember, when Yoruichi left she had converted the room into a study – and burned that chair, symbol of a continuity, split by her sempai's departure –

With her wounds pleading with her to stay still and her crotch swollen with the memory of pain, she hoists herself upon it and lies down on its entire length. A short stump of a table lies just opposite, a column of glossy paper on it arranged so neatly that she thinks she really is in a crazy place.

She imagines all this – in a house, where it would be long: stumpy table, clear-glass cups, white-edged beds, dark brown bookshelves, shelves crammed full of cheery-eyed soft-toys – and she imagines this, the SOFA FOR TWO: SALE – and she imagines:

Yes, it would be nice if she _really _did meet Yoruichi. Two of them, side by side, on this soft sea of sleek fabric. Yes, it would be nice if everything was like it once was –

But another crescendo of pain grips her, and she throws up blood across the gulf separating her and the table. She hugs her weapon tighter – maybe it will stop the pain, she thinks. It does not.

Her mind remembers the innocent Juri on the table just out of her view. And her Lieutenant with the hole in his neck nearer still. And she says to the claustrophobic darkness:

"What have I done – what have I done?"

And for once, it replies:

"Nothing –

"Leaving you was my fault."

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_05.06.09_ (1st Edit), _07.06.09_ (2nd)

**Additional Notes:** Once again I busted the deadline. So to atone for my sins I'll conclude & wrap everything up in an epilogue (final, final chapter this time, really) as mentioned at the start. It will be out end of next week.

If it isn't clear enough in this chapter, **ask **me. I prefer a conversation than explaining what exactly happened.

I don't advertise for Ikea, btw. I needed something universal to link with my theme, furniture.

For all my 7 reviewers (as at 7 June), I really thank you for your comments. I'm used to getting a low reading count, but you guys make me feel better about that :) For others, I'll be grateful if you could point out my flaws/ faults/ problems in a review.


	4. Epilogue: Breathing, Dreaming, Waiting

**EPILOGUE: **_Breathing, Dreaming, Waiting_****

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Everything about Captain Retsu Unohara is immaculately white, Soi Fon thinks, from the wind-stirred curtains, the filtered sunlight leaping down from the window, the chalky walls of the 4th Division hospital like unstirred milk, the razor-thin smile exposing once again a sliver of front teeth on her face as she lowers herself to check on her – an extreme, sterile whiteness.

"That you survived is nothing short of a miracle," she tells her, but Soi Fon sees the movement at the corners of her mouth elongate in something other than the lightness in her voice. "So gather your strength, Captain Soi Fon. You'll need all of it for what's going to come next."

She sleeps on her left side – where her ear is still whole and her shoulder is spared any wound. She chooses to sleep away from the window, allowing the wind massages her exposed back, tickles her bandaged fingers.

In her free time, she records mentally the volume of visitors, but she does not speak to them. She does not feel in the mood. When her men arrive and acquaint her with the new Lieutenant – a hard-faced, puffer-fish- of-a-man named Omaeda – she decides to blink in acknowledgement and offer him her silence. Several captains make their visits too: Shunshui and Ukitake whisper all the available rumours to her back, thinking she cannot hear; Komamura leaves a bouquet by the foot of her bed; she feels traces of Kenpachi's brief visit linger long after he is gone; and Hitsugaya is the only one of them who ventures over to peer at her face when he realizes she does not respond to her, before retreating to slouch by the wall, trying not to look impatient.

No one dispenses more than a sentence to her.

It is Isane Kotetsu whom she sees most often: the presence who leaves the food, then lingers around waiting for her to eat it, probably ordered by her Captain to oversee her. But the vice-captain is not like the other visitors, who treat her with the brittle caution of a hero intoxicated by her own heroism. Isane _works_ on her, sometimes helping her flex her swollen fingers, sometimes helping to reconstruct her braids –.

So when Isane asks, casually, what the world happened in the earth realm, Soi Fon tells her, in a voice throaty from many days of disuse, how Youruchi-sama saved her.

She tells how the darkness produced two familiar shadows. She tells how they swarmed around her – friendly shadows, with inconsistent but warm voices which rubbed her face and kept her awake. One had a walking stick which carved upon her battered body indifferent symbols for healing – a man, whom she believes was Urahara Kisuke from his flat, shambling voice (he was telling the truth after all!, Soi Fon remarks loudly, at which she sees Isane paw the edge of the bed and acquire a Unohara-like smile.)

But more importantly, she tells Isane about Yoruichi-sama. She tells about the pair of eyes, blossoming from the intense black of what she thought would've been her deathbed. A shadow in the likeness of Yoruichi-sama! She tells how she asked her, "Have you come to save me?", and how she replies:

"Yes."

She tells how Yoruichi-sama had vials for hands – vials to collect the residue of tears, sweat and blood gushing from her body. She tells how Yoruichi-sama's face itself was a repository for tears too: salty, a constant stream of them. She tells how Yoruichi-sama had a necklace for arms, which she drooped down her front to chain her still as Urahara attempted (unsuccessfully) to heal her most grievous of wounds. She tells how when it seemed as if no rescue would be coming, Yoruichi-sama had buried her face into hers, submerged her arms into her arms, sunk into her – to keep her warm, to weep over her.

And she tells how, when the presence of 2nd Division officers began to flare outside the structure, she had revived, breathing so deeply that she imagined herself to be stuck underwater, only to see Yoruichi-sama's face bubbling above hers. Her face was tattooed with blood –_ my blood!_ – and her eyes were like stars, unblinking. The light had thrown her face into a profile of many things: a cat, a human, a girl with a ponytail, an archangel – And Yoruichi-sama had bent low, planted a kiss on the artery which defined itself at the base of her throat and said:

"In a little while, but not yet."

"Wait for me."

She concludes by telling Isane she does not remember anything else, and that she is certain everything took place as she has detailed, and that all she needs to do now is to return to life, and wait. For a moment, she feels everything so strongly she attempts to get to her feet, at which she is immediately discouraged from doing.

Her story ends; Soi Fon sees Isane's smile prolong itself, before withdrawing itself into a short chuckle. Isane then diverts her gaze to a point equidistant to the window. Finally, she gets up and helps Soi Fon regain the feeling in her right thigh by moving the leg, which gives Soi Fon a prickling, cramped sensation.

When Isane leaves, she re-assumes her position: face to wall, eyes level, hands assembled before her. She moves her fingers, tracing the wooden plane of her bed. It reminds her of the thing the humans call a SOFA: but the bed is not as soft as that human invention, and here it lacks the customary warmth of her sempai.

When she is certain she is alone, her hands return to the point on her throat where ghost of Yoruichi-sama's touch has, she is certain, disfigured her. She wants a mirror. She wants to view the only commendable spoil she, as the triumphant surviving warrior, can claim (although she thinks it is something her Lieutenant – her _former_ Lieutenant – would say).

And from without she can hear Isane's unhurried voice leaking through the closed door:

"Will you please ask the Captain Commander postpone the inquiry –?

"No – no, she's not in the right state of mind to answer all those charges."

_END –_

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_08.06.2009 (1st Edit), 10.06.09 (2nd)_

**Syukur Kepada Tuhan untuk tulisan saya**_. May all glory return to God for every word written._

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**NOTES:** Thanks to Silvershadow090, dsaANON, Darkshadow-lord, PolarisAmane, Houzen, Yuki, Roflroflrofl & icegirl1 for the reviews. From your comments, I kind of inferred that I would have a lot of explaining to do here. I tried to make it both dream-like & yet easy to understand. So I hope I didn't disappoint you. And if you were, I _apologize_. Partly because I'm not a writer of clear-cut endings.

I had fun writing this. Soi Fon is still the most interesting character in the canon. This probably means I'll probably be writing for BOTH Bleach & Claymore concurrently.

Also: if I ask any of you to be my beta, I hope you will consider. It'll be an honour to continue writing for/ working with you guys!

Reviews, as always, appreciated. Questions, if asked, might be get long replies :)


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